Dealer Spotlight: Son or Filtronique
A while ago I was in Montreal for the Salon Son & Image (SSI) show. While I was there I had the opportunity to meet with a few high-end audio store owners and audiophiles not in the audio industry. One of the dealers I visited was Son or Filtronique.
The store and their staff were busy getting ready for the show, so although I had a quick tour of their impressive store, I unfortunately didn’t have a chance to do any listening (or take any photos). I did, however, have the chance for a quick chat with one of their audio consultants, Paul Trépanier.
What’s your background? Tell us a bit about yourself.
The store was founded in 1968 by a gentleman called Guy Charbonneau, and I think now he has a recording studio somewhere in Los Angeles. He’s done some work with Pink Floyd. The store was then bought by André Riendeau and he was the owner until just a couple of years ago and now his daughter is actually the owner. Giles has been here for ever, he actually owns some shares in the company, and he’s also the manager.
I’ve been working here for 16 years. I work on the floor, I’m also the main buyer for the company, and I’m the turntable guy here.
Ah, so we’re talking to the right guy then!
Yeah! So I started being an audio nut at the age of 16, so it was kind of a long time ago. There were no CDs back then, and the turntable by itself was always my passion in audio, so in the years where turntables faded quite a bit it was a little less fun for me but I’ve never stopped listening to LPs. That’s the only format I use at home, I don’t have a CD player. I have one in a secondary system of course, but in my main system I don’t have one. I used to own one but I never used it. I have a few CDs and when I find the vinyl I get rid of the CD. So I’ve kind of done the reverse of every one else.
Cool! We’re very much kindred spirits in that respect. So where did you get your love of hi-fi?
I started listening to music as a teenager, so I was listening to stuff like Grand Funk Railroad, Alice Cooper, all the progressive stuff, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Genesis. I bought my first sound system at the age of 16. That turntable was a Pioneer PL112 and it had an Audio Technica AT11E, which was really dreadful but I didn’t know any better. My father used my turntable and broke the stylus, but he never admitted it, so I went to a specialised hi-fi shop and they sold me a $50 Ortofon cartridge. It was an F15 and I was 16 and I thought &rldquo;$50 bucks for a cartridge? That’s expensive!”.
So I installed it onto my turntable, and the difference was absolutely astounding. That’s where it all started, and it’s been downhill since then! [laughs]
How important is it for you to have a great relationship with the manufacturers of the products you represent?
Whenever possible, to have a great relationship is very important. Definitely, we’ve dealt with people in the past who made a great product but, to say it bluntly, the guys were acting like a horse’s ass! So basically, when you need service after, it’s always a problem, it’s always a hassle, so I’ve learned my lesson: the first thing now is to try to meet people, talk with them. If you have a great relationship with them, everything can be worked out in the end.
So what you’re saying is that some of your presumably former suppliers were quite happy to take your money, but weren’t there to back you up when you needed it?
Yeah, absolutely.
Do you sell used gear in addition to new, and if so, roughly what percentage of your business comes from buyers of used gear?
Yes we do. I would say roughly 25% to 30% of our sales are used. We have lots of repeat customers, so when they want to upgrade their equipment they bring it back here, and we make them an offer. We have a store policy where if people bought something here and they want to upgrade within that year, provided the next piece of equipment is at least twice the price of what they bought before, we give them whatever they paid for their unit. We do that for a year; it has to be clean, because obviously we can only sell it for market price afterwards. Basically, it’s the same as if we lend something to someone for a year until they can afford what they really want. After the year, then we give market price for it.
That’s a good policy, and it helps encourage people to get more stuff as they can afford it.
Yeah, absolutely.
How has the global economic slowdown affected your business? Are more people buying used gear than before?
We do see more people coming in for used, but they’re much stiffer for pricing. I would say that, at least in my store, that the pricing of used equipment went down because now with the Internet, people will see a price on the ’net and let’s say when they come here the price is more expensive, I have to tell them, “Well, we’re reputable, you know us. If there’s a problem with it you can come back. You don’t have to pay for shipping, if the unit you saw is in the US, you will have to pay customs. If it wasn’t made in the US you will also have to pay excise tax. And if there are any problems with it, then it’s tough luck.”. I’ve been told by customers many times before, “If that guy is happy with that price, you should be happy with it too. That’s market price.” So now what we do is we have the Blue book on Audiogon. It’s not new, everybody has access to it. We go on that site and we show the customer what his equipment is worth. That’s the most I will be able to get for it. Then they tell us, “Yeah but you’re a reputable store, you’re this and that...”. We’ve been there and customers don’t listen, they just want the price, so that’s it.
What are the benefits of buying from Filtronique?
Well, again, the store has been here a long, long time.
Same location?
Uh-huh. We have a service department downstairs so I would say that most of the repairs are done here. We don’t have to send stuff back to Timbuktu to have it fixed, so I think that’s a fair advantage. It’s a business and we have to earn a living, but I would say that our prices are competitive. I think we’re friendly, I like to think so at least! [laughs]
You have a nice selection of products and brands.
Yeah, exactly. I don’t go to my competitors all that often, but I would think—and from what I hear form my customers—we have the widest selection in Montreal. That’s what they tell us.
How would you describe your average customer, and roughly what proportion of your customers are new (as opposed to repeat) business?
Mmm, that’s a tough one. New customers, not very much; mostly repeat customers. Youngsters, we see them, but not very much. They have other places where they can spend their money. I would say that when we were young, anything that was pertaining to technology was to do with music reproduction, but these days that’s not the case at all. And music for most people is just something they can download for free from the ’net, so they don’t see it as something really special.
Once in a while we’ll actually see a young guy that comes in with Led Zeppelin LPs, and we say, “Oh my God, what happened to that guy?” So we want to serve him as well as possible because we need him as a repeat customer. If you take the whole audio pie, the kind of business we’re at, we know it’s a shrinking market. Fortunately for us, in Montreal two-channel stereo is still very strong, as opposed to stories that we hear from the US. Apparently it’s not very good there... There are some towns I heard, like Milwaukee, the last specialised audio store shut his doors a year ago.
Roughly what proportion of your clients have analogue sources, and how has that trend changed over the past few years?
It’s hard to say, but more and more people are interested in analogue. I would say five years ago I would sell three turntables a year, and now I sell three per week.
Really?! Wow, so it’s improved a lot...
Yeah. People are asking questions about it. The main market for turntables that we have here is between $1,000 and $3,000. If you take the Rega P3, that’s a great seller. Actually, it’s our best seller, then the VPIs: the Scout, the Scout 2. The Classic has been an excellent seller for us. Above that the air is much rarer. So in terms of percentage of customers, I would say 35% to 40%, but that’s growing.
Excellent, that’s great to hear! Do you host any after-hours events, and if so, what impact do they have on your business, especially from new customers?
We’ve done it in the past. The times that we did it were pretty good. The last time was quite a while ago, it was for Shunyata products. The demo was quite good, it had a great impact, partly because of that we know for a fact that we’re the largest Shunyata dealer in Canada, and have been told that between the lines, we’re probably the largest one in North America. Not less than the second one, I’m pretty sure. We did an event years ago with Verity but we were showing the Lohengrin, so it was quite popular but at $80,000+ for a pair of speakers, it did not generate any sales for that particular product, but awareness actually grew for the brand.
How do you decide whether to take on a new line?
That’s a tough one! I mean obviously there’s how good it will be financially for the store of course, but performance must be there and everyone who listens to the product must like it. We already have too many lines here, which sometimes confuses the customer, but at the same time, for them we never have enough. So it’s a bit conflicting here! As much as possible we try to evaluate stuff. Let’s say, for example, if we bring in an amplifier, we try to try it with all the speakers we have to see if it matches well with them, if we like the result. We try to find out the history of the product, reliability wise, we try to find out if we can have a good rapport with their owner, because if the rapport is really cold, no matter how good the product is, for the reasons I mentioned before, I don’t really want to touch it.
At the end of the day, this is a business about relationships...
Right. We don’t sell black boxes, we sell enjoyment, they’re all enjoyed by people, so if you have a good rapport with people they will come back to you. We have people having fun with their system at home and to enjoy it as much as possible.
What’s the best demo session you can remember? And the worst?
One of the best demos I ever heard was actually last year at the Montreal show. It was the Verity Audio room. When you go to shows it’s all bells and whistles, and sometimes we hear systems that are impressive, but the more you listen to them you finally find something wrong in the sound and then it always sticks out. But the Verity Audio room last year, for me, was the best room at the show. You’re probably going to the show this year? You’re in town for that?
Yes.
I think we’re doing pretty well, usually. René, for Fidelio Audio, his room is always, always top notch.
How about the worst, as in the most embarrassing?
Hmm, I can’t think of the most embarrassing one... You know, the worst speaker that I tried in my house was actually a Wilson Audio Watt Puppy. It was a 5 or a 5.1. It lasted for half a cut, I couldn’t listen to it. It was ear piercing. But probably, it could’ve had something to do with my existing system at the time. But the worst? I’ve heard so many bad systems...
Has anything gone wrong or blown up when you’ve tried to demo it?
[Laughs] Yeah, that happens...! Sometimes if you take CD players, for example, they’re... Well, anything these days is quite sensitive, so if you touch it and have a static discharge, CD players that refuse to start after. You do the sales pitch about a certain product to someone, tell them how great it is, and then you want to play it and it simply doesn’t work. So you think, “Well, I don’t think I’m going to be able to sell them this, at least today!”. That happens. Sometimes customers come in with their kids and they see a tweeter as a nice button and then you go back and see all those tweeters that are destroyed. We’re used to this now, it happens all the time.
As a specialist audio dealer, you presumably have access to pretty much whatever gear you want. What’s currently in your home system?
My home system? I’m using an SME 10 turntable. That was a dream from a long time ago, when I first started here in 1999, I said, “One day I’m gonna have one,” but it was out of my reach. Let’s face it, I’m an audio salesman. I don’t drive a BMW, I drive a Mazda. People think, “Oh yeah, you guys have the big markups, you make lots of money.” They don’t really know how to run a business. So, a couple of years ago, I sold the Oracle Delphi that I had back then and went to see my boss and I said, “I’d love to have an SME turntable, so can I pay you in instalments for a while?” and he said, “Yes.” So I ordered it and I’ve had it for two or three years, I’m super happy with it. I’m using a Naim SuperLine phono stage and a Lyra cartridge, a Lyra Delos.
Are you using your turntable with the 309 it comes with?
Yeah, it was the 10 at the time, but I’m actually ordering a Series V in the near future.
The Series V is a wonderful arm, I used to have one.
I used to have one myself. Of all the components that I’ve owned and I’ve sold, that is the one I regret the most. So I’m, using the Naim SuperLine with a SuperNait which is fed by a HiCap, and I’m just using an old Sansui STU717 tuner. I’ve changed all the electrolytic capacitors and had the variable capacitor cleaned. It’s good enough for what I do and the quality of FM that we have in Montreal. My speakers are speakers that I built myself. They started as a ProAc 2.5 clone but it ended up being a little bit different. I’m quite happy, I mean it’s not the system that has the most resolution, but it’s system that gives me pleasure. One thing that I’ve learned in the past, the fact that I endorse Naim systems is something quite recent for me. My opinion is not necessarily endorsed by everybody, but I’ve had some obscenely priced systems in my house and when you work in audio, people always ask you, “How does that compare to this, how does this sound? Can you describe the sound of it?” So basically, we’re kind of conditioned to always find defects in everything that we listen to. I listen to music the whole day here and I listen to music at home because that’s why I started working in this field: I love music. But when you have your own sound system and you can’t enjoy it because you’re always thinking of how it sounds this way, it’s not what you want. I mean you just want to put on your LPs and have fun. A couple of years ago there was a customer who brought back a Naim Nait 5i as a trade in, and it was absolutely mint, so I took it to my house that night and it stayed there! I was using an Exposure amplifier which I liked, but the Naim trashed it. It wasn’t a matter of whether there was more bass or less bass or more treble or this and that, it just... Music simply flowed. They call it PRaT [pace, rhythm, and timing] but the way the music flowed was entirely natural, so every single LP that I put on my turntable, I simply had fun with it. So I’m actually quite an addict of that brand now. It’s not perfect, there are other brands that do what they don’t do, but it gives me the pleasure of listening to music in my house without thinking of how it sounds.
How much time do you get to listen to music at home, and what are some of your favourite records?
I listen to music every morning. I start the music at about 08:00, that’s when my son gets up. Then I come to work and obviously I listen to some music, and I would say that most of the time at night I listen to music. At the weekend, music plays all the time. I couldn’t go deaf: I’d go crazy! In the morning especially, I like to listen to some Beethoven piano music, but the rest of the time it’s anything from Bach to Varèse. I’m a big Shostakovich fan, Beethoven of course, especially the late sonatas and quartets. I think nobody else ever wrote something like those, but then it can be rock: anything from Black Sabbath to Nirvana, ZZ Top. More and more Americana, like Ryan Adams, Lucinda Williams, that kind of music. I like Jack Johnson very much. So I listen to everything except hip hop. Hip hop is something I don’t understand. I have some friends that are music teachers and I ask them, “You’re a music teacher. What’s the value in this?” and they say, “There’s no value whatsoever.” They don’t see it at all.
Presumably you’ve become friends with some of your clients over the years?
Yeah, absolutely. Everyone here has become friends with some customers. There’s one guy working here, Eric, he used to be my customer. Some customers call me at home, they actually come home and... You build a rapport with your customers so some of them become your friends.
What’s next for Filtronique?
Well, we’ve had both of our feet solidly anchored in two channel, and we’ve done home theatre like everybody else in the past, but it was never our passion, never our forte. I’m friends with other salesmen in other stores in town and we talk about this among ourselves sometimes, and back in the 1980s when I started If I knew that 20 years from then I’d be selling DVD players I might have gone into that field. I will say this: with Naim products we can do more streaming music, we can stream music into different rooms and I think that’s going to appeal to more people. So I think that’s the future.
Contact Information
Son or Filtronique
9343 Lajeunesse
Montreal
QC H2M 1S5
(514) 389-1377
www.filtronique.com